North of Maplecrest Park - tell me about it.

By the way, my comments are not to imply anything about politics, much less corruption. I'm only talking about, and interested in, factoids concerning the history and physical development of the town.

spontaneous said:

When my step-sister's father purchased the house I now own the man he bought it from in late 1980's said he was selling to get away from the "crack wars" that were happening in our area. At the time I lived across the street. I have seen the neighborhood go down (a few stolen cars) and then back up again, and one of our neighbors did have a burglary recently. But I haven't seen any extremes, and most certainly have never seen anything approaching what one would describe as a "crack war."

Perhaps he was referring to all the plumbers moving into town?

Outbid again, wayyyyyyy over asking, but thanks for the insight on the area. BTW, I thought all the bankers move to Madison & Short Hills & such? I'd like to create an ordinance whereby for each hedge fund manager that purchases a home in SOMA, 5 non-finance families are able to bid on homes that exclude bids from said finance folk. Otherwise, SOMA starts to resemble present day Park Slope and that is soooo boring.

Bidding wars are becoming common here again unfortunately. Can't speak for present day Park Slope but Maplewood and South Orange are still far from boring.

I think my ordinance would help keep it that way :-D

Honestly I don't know that many hedge fund managers around here. I'm sure there are some, maybe many, but I personally know more artists by far and people from just about every other "walk of life" as well.

There ARE a lot of realtors ...

Sorry you got outbid.....Look for a "fixer upper." We had a couple ok our block (a "desirable neighborhood" according to the realtors) that sat for a looooong time which was really surprising in this market. There weren't any bidding wars or much interest in them until they reduced the price by over 100k.

We bought 3 years ago and wouldn't be able to afford much of anything in Maplewood if we were looking to buy now. I don't know what happened, but it's crazy.

thenewguy said:

Essex road, Plymouth and Highland have had a block party the last few years. LOTS of kids. Great neighborhood with people who help each other out. One block from the park. Jitney on corner. Walk to Clinton and Seth Boyden and town pool around the corner.

If I'm understanding correctly about where the OP is talking about, the neighborhood here, is a TOTALLY DIFFERENT neighborhood, despite the fact that it's just on the other side of the park.

OP stated that he was talking about the area by Forest Road and Essex Road. Plymouth Place and Highland Avenue are each within a block or two of that location.

@bkeditor
If you can specify in a thread title what you're looking for (#Bed/#bath, price range, and any other prefs), you might get some not-yet-on-market leads.
(For example: http://forum.maplewoodonline.com//discussion/comment/2760784)

bkeditor said:

Outbid again, wayyyyyyy over asking, but thanks for the insight on the area. BTW, I thought all the bankers move to Madison & Short Hills & such? I'd like to create an ordinance whereby for each hedge fund manager that purchases a home in SOMA, 5 non-finance families are able to bid on homes that exclude bids from said finance folk. Otherwise, SOMA starts to resemble present day Park Slope and that is soooo boring.

Don't assume that just because you got outbid, the winning bidder was some kind of Wall Streeter... lots of people just have no clue about their own finances and get caught up in the adrenaline of the bidding war and end up buying houses they simply can't afford. I just did a Zillow search for all of Maplewood. I know Zillow can be unreliable, but that said, it's got 68 properties for sale, 132 listed as pre-foreclosure, and 10 listed as in foreclosure... When we were house hunting in M/SO in 2003, we got outbid on a house on Maplewood Avenue, and to this day we are so thankful that we did, because we never would have been able to keep our heads above water with that house. We ended up with a fixer-upper in a great location in South Orange. It's still a fixer-upper, to a lesser degree than when we bought it... but we could and can afford it and we've been happy there. Take @afa's advice and try to find a "diamond in the rough"... you can fix anything about a house except the location; that should be the prime consideration. (Speaking of location, have you looked in South Orange? If not, why not?)

bkeditor said:

Outbid again, wayyyyyyy over asking, but thanks for the insight on the area. BTW, I thought all the bankers move to Madison & Short Hills & such? I'd like to create an ordinance whereby for each hedge fund manager that purchases a home in SOMA, 5 non-finance families are able to bid on homes that exclude bids from said finance folk. Otherwise, SOMA starts to resemble present day Park Slope and that is soooo boring.

I have a theory that the bidding wars are being driven in part by folks who made a killing on their apartments in Brooklyn when the market rose rapidly - they have large down payments even if they are not bankers. Also, two-income couples who don't have childcare expenses (yet!).

sprout - I may just do that. thanks!

bluepool - You're right, I am assuming, though my Agent did tell me several properties have gone exceedingly over asking with all cash offers. Who has that kind of dough? We're looking in South Orange as well, either town would suit us just fine. We are perfectly happy with a fixer-upper too, I think that's all we can swing in this crazy market.

jersey123 said:

bkeditor said:

Outbid again, wayyyyyyy over asking, but thanks for the insight on the area. BTW, I thought all the bankers move to Madison & Short Hills & such? I'd like to create an ordinance whereby for each hedge fund manager that purchases a home in SOMA, 5 non-finance families are able to bid on homes that exclude bids from said finance folk. Otherwise, SOMA starts to resemble present day Park Slope and that is soooo boring.

I have a theory that the bidding wars are being driven in part by folks who made a killing on their apartments in Brooklyn when the market rose rapidly - they have large down payments even if they are not bankers. Also, two-income couples who don't have childcare expenses (yet!).

True dat. My wife and I joke that if we didn't have kids we'd probably own 2 houses by now. All kidding aside, I'm blessed and wouldn't change a thing.

We just purchased in the area (South Orange) and we ended up having to go through 2 offers that didn't go through because of competing cash bids before we ended up with the house we now have. I have no idea where all of this cash comes from, as both my wife and I have decent salaries, but for the life of us couldn't scrape together $500k in CA$H, despite having two decent profits from property sales in the past decade.

(We sold our place in Washington Heights for all cash as well, and the buyers were far from bankers. They had enough money left over to pretty much completely gut the place and annoy all of our former neighbors as well!)

You should definitely keep looking, you'll get the hang of the area and know what's over and under priced. I'd defnitely recommend looking in both Maplewood and South Orange, there's little functional difference between the two, as both downtowns compliment each other well. Going from one to the other doesn't feel like you're going somewhere else. Sometimes the only way to know what town you're is if you see gaslights then you know you're in South Orange, and if you don't you're in Maplewood. There are differences in neighborhoods, but both towns generally have a similar range.

It'll probably be more work than you expected, but you WILL find something!

bkeditor--do you have to buy right now? This is the "hot" season, as everyone wants to move here in the spring/summer, mostly for school reasons. However, if you don't have to move right now, you could bide your time until the fall/winter, when it is much slower. We just closed on our house yesterday, and my wife wanted to start looking in the winter, to avoid to spring market. We ended up getting our house for 5% below the asking price, and there were no other offers, so we were able to negotiate more easily and more favorably with the seller. I know someone else who moved here in Nov, and his story was similar, getting the house for less than asking. The market is crazy right now--our realtor told us yesterday that a house across the street from ours which just went on the market had four offers on it, and there was a house a few blocks from ours that had thirteen offers on it. If you can wait, the market might be more to your advantage in the late fall/winter.

relx said:

bkeditor--do you have to buy right now? This is the "hot" season, as everyone wants to move here in the spring/summer, mostly for school reasons. However, if you don't have to move right now, you could bide your time until the fall/winter, when it is much slower. We just closed on our house yesterday, and my wife wanted to start looking in the winter, to avoid to spring market. We ended up getting our house for 5% below the asking price, and there were no other offers, so we were able to negotiate more easily and more favorably with the seller. I know someone else who moved here in Nov, and his story was similar, getting the house for less than asking. The market is crazy right now--our realtor told us yesterday that a house across the street from ours which just went on the market had four offers on it, and there was a house a few blocks from ours that had thirteen offers on it. If you can wait, the market might be more to your advantage in the late fall/winter.

This can make sense, but keep in mind that inventory is also limited that time of year too. Even more so than now, which is what appears to be driving the market conditions.